Review Sponsored Astro Gaming Astro Call of Duty A20 Wireless
TechRadar Verdict
Thanks to its incredible flexibility, mid-range sound and ease-of-utilise, the Astro A20 remains a groovy choice for gamers. Still, there are a few other alternatives that offering better comfort, virtual surround sound and longer battery life for just a piffling flake more money.
Pros
- +
Plug and play design
- +
Fantastic mid-range audio
- +
Lift-to-mute microphone
- +
Multiplatform (with ii dongles)
Cons
- -
Rubber padding on span
- -
Non a swell audio range
- -
No Bluetooth or 3.5mm jack
- -
Middling battery life
One-minute review
The Astro A20 has long been seen as the gold standard in wireless gaming headsets. For years it has been the get-to gaming headset if you lot didn't want to drop a ton of money thank you to its incredible vocal clarity, potent connectivity and a plug-and-play USB dongle.
Its latest incarnation, the Astro A20 Gen. two, offers compatibility with both adjacent-gen consoles – the PS5 and Xbox Serial X – too as PC and Mac. Y'all'll need to buy a separate dongle for both Xbox and PlayStation if you want the headset to piece of work across all platforms, but it is a decent solution if y'all're tired of buying different headsets for each console.
While information technology doesn't exercise much to shake up the A20'south design besides swapping out the charging port to USB-C and ups the wireless range from thirty feet offered by the first-gen model to 50 feet in Gen. ii, it does lower the cost from $150 to an fifty-fifty more reasonable $120 (£99, AU$279). That means the new Astro A20 Gen. 2 is cheaper than its ii main competitors, the SteelSeries Arctis 9X and HyperX Cloud II Wireless, just it'southward missing a few connectivity options and comes with a few caveats in the pattern and performance departments.
If yous tin can overlook the rubber padding on the bridge, lack of both Bluetooth and 3.5mm audio jacks, and don't listen its limited battery life, the new Astro A20 Gen. two is a solid stereo headset that can nonetheless compete with more than recent models while retaining a lot of what made the headset so dandy when information technology came out a few years ago.
Release date and price
The Astro A20 Gen. 2 is a hardware refresh of a headset that came out back in 2017 for Xbox One, PS4 and PC. The new Astro A20 Gen. 2 was released at the terminate of 2020 for the launch of the PS5 and Xbox Series X at a new lower price of $119 (£99, AU$279).
Design
The Astro A20 Gen. 2 comes in 2 variants: one that works for PC/Mac and PlayStation consoles (PS4 and PS5), and another that works on PC/Mac and Xbox consoles that include the Xbox One, Xbox One X, Xbox One S, Xbox Serial 10 and Xbox Series S.
There'due south a slight difference in how the two technologies connect, but otherwise y'all can tell the two variants autonomously past their color schemes. The PlayStation version is white and black with blue accents while the Xbox version is white and black with dark-green accents.
Regardless of which color scheme y'all become, the construction is the same - and it'south all plastic with bits of rubber and soft fabric earpads. The plastic build is a chip disconcerting as plastic headsets are more than decumbent to snapping than their metallic counterparts, but as a tradeoff they're a bit lighter and can be more comfy, besides.
That, largely, is the case for the Astro A20 but we did feel that the condom pad along the bridge tin can pull on your pilus and isn't equally comfy as a foam pad would've been.
Attaching the span to the earcups are plastic extendable hinges that should fit almost head sizes. My slightly smaller dome fit in their pretty snugly - which isn't e'er the case for headsets - and I felt that there was just the correct corporeality of clamping force keeping them on my head. That might not be the instance for y'all, notwithstanding, so it's worth paying extra attention to their fit before you go also far exterior of a potential return policy.
Along the earcups, you'll find a few different buttons on the headset's right tin, including Voice and Game audio buttons that nudge the residue towards one or the other, as well as a general volume dial right in between them. There'southward also an equalizer push button for swapping through presets, besides as an overall ability on-off push button.
Similar other Astro headsets, the microphone has flip-to-mute capabilities, meaning it's automatically silenced when you plow information technology up so that it's flush with the connecting arm. That'south then much ameliorate than fumbling for a mute button while playing, though it would've been nice if the mic was completely detachable like it is on other headsets in the same price range.
Operation
Unsurprisingly, the Astro A20 Gen. 2 sounds just as good equally its predecessor. It brings a particular focus to the mid-range, helping dialogue and footsteps cutting through intense gunfire and explosions. Sometimes this can come up at the expense of the lower and college frequencies, simply the Astro A20 Gen. 2 feels perfectly tuned for a chat headset.
We tried a number of unlike games while wearing the Astro A20 Gen. two, just we spent the most time with Cyberpunk 2077 and Fortnite on the Xbox Series X, and a new co-op game called It Takes Two on the PC. We took a number of meetings with the headset on, and everyone nosotros spoke to said we sounded crisp and articulate.
The feel, largely, was the same for each – clear dialogue and decent bass response. Cyberpunk 2077'south Night City felt more alive with the headset on and firefights became more intense. It was easier to locate treasure chests in Fortnite when we could hear their radiating aura from further away. In Information technology Takes 2, we had no problems hearing our co-op partner and they didn't have a hard fourth dimension hearing us, either.
The only downside? All of these sounds were limited to the horizontal audio plane. Nosotros really never got a sense of verticality with the headset, which is something that's offered on some of Astro's competitors.
We'd also say that this really isn't the most musically oriented gaming headset out there, either. The soundstage is relatively limited when it comes to sound due to the airtight-back design of the headset, and there'southward a distinct lack of item.
Playing around with the EQ button on the side of the headset tin sometimes help add together a little oomph to the highs and lows of the audio spectrum, merely at that place's no mode to tell which EQ setting y'all're using without an updated version of the Astro Control Eye. (The version available on the Microsoft Shop currently doesn't recognize the Astro A20 Gen. two.)
Frustratingly, the only fashion to connect the headset is through the included dongle. At that place'southward no built-in Bluetooth that you lot could use to pair the headset to your phone for phone calls, and at that place's not even a iii.5mm headphone jack if you lot run out of battery.
Battery life
Speaking of battery life, A20 Gen. 2 has enough juice for 15 hours of playback, according to Astro. That's a number that we found mostly accurate, if a little on the high side. Nosotros were able to go near two work days with it playing music and gaming before information technology needed to be re-charged.
While 15 hours is definitely plenty to go y'all through a weekend, it'southward half the length of time that the Astro A20 Gen. 2'south rivals, the SteelSeries Arctis 9X and HyperX Cloud II Wireless, offer. Both of those clock in at around 30 hours wireless, and the battery life here is a far cry from the Sennheiser GSP 370 that claims to accomplish up to 100 hours of playback before needing a charge.
The good news here is that the Astro A20 Gen. 2 does have an auto-shutoff feature that will kick in after x minutes, reducing the amount of battery wasted in standby manner – though information technology only seems to work on PC, not on consoles. When information technology works it's a nice feature if y'all often forget to turn off your headset, and information technology helps maximize battery life.
Recharging takes a fiddling over an hour and uses the same USB-C port.
Should you buy the Astro A20 Gen. two Gaming Headset?
Purchase it if…
Don't purchase it if…
- Still not sure? Check out our guide to the best PC gaming headsets for more options
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Source: https://www.techradar.com/reviews/astro-a20-wireless-gen-2
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